I would appreciate if those of you who did AG Nationals would give your opinion on the new venue, Shreveport and the race direction. There has been some high profile bashing of PEM-USA and I would like your opinion of how the race was handled this year and, especially, provide a contrast to last years race.
The South Midwest Region would like to host additional national events and your opinions will be relayed to the board at our next meeting on October 9.
Bob Sigerson
I felt the race was much better run this year then last year. I did both races so I certainly can offer comparisons.
Swim course: The Red River, even though it was rather cloudy, was a vast improvement over Champion Lake. The so called current was not a factor whatsoever. It’s the only the second time I’ve done a point to point swim, and I thought it was fun. The shuttle service to the swim was pretty good, though they probably could have used a few more busses. Since my wave wasn’t until 7:30 I probably missed the crush of people who wanted to be there well before 7:00 AM.
Bike course: The bike course is rather boring, but there is something to be said for a course on a closed highway. I love not having to contend with cars on the course or wondering if the cop at an intersection is going let a car cross or not as I get there. I’m not sure there really is anywhere else to hold the bike leg. The serpentine formation was a little annoying with all the 180 degree turns, but I guess it would be hard to do loops on that course without closing more of the highway. This year it did seem a little more spread out. Maybe because there were less athletes. I didn’t feel like there were massive packs of guys passing me. The officials appeared to be doing a good job of enforcing drafting rules.
Run course: Once again a vast improvemnt over last year’s course. Last year’s run was a free for all. It was out and back with lots of corners, and runners were allowed on either side of the road, and allowed to take the tangents. Consequently the corners became a big game of chicken with runners coming for the same spot in opposite directions. There were numerous places where I thought I would run head on into someone coming the other direction. Being 5’ 3" I’m going to lose any collision with guys who are 5" 10". So guess who gave way when confronted with the younger guys coming back. This year’s course was simpler, and i liked running on the bike path for portions of the run. The aid stations were well manned, and plenty of water. Having GU available at mile 1 was nice. Especially becasue my gel pack had fallen off my race belt.
Results: It was nice to see the results up at the finish line. Last year we had to wait until 4:30 at the convention center. I don’t want to wait that long to see how I did.
Non-race items:
Expo: Kind of disappointing. I would like to see more product demonstrations, seminars, and bigger vendors there.
Pasta party: Biggest disappointment. The food was okay, but I resented paying extra money for the event, and then be bombarded with an infomercial for the title sponsor’s products. I appreciate the fact that Tri-Genix put a lot of money into the race, but their presentation should have been part of a race expo seminar, or the pasta party should have been free. I come to pre-race parties to socialize with friends, and meet new people. That was not possible with the presentation going on.
Awards dinner, and ceremony: The food was decent, and the Mardi Gras theme was fun. It was nice to really be able to socialize with people. The actual ceremony was well done, and they seemed to be moving things along well. The sponsors were very generous, and there were some nice give aways. I would have loved to been sitting in one of the seats with the Polar HRM prize.
Post Race Party: That was fun, though the food was rather sparse. Potato chips, pretzels, and Cajun cocktail mix doesn’t go far with a bunch of hungry triathletes.
Shreveport: I felt the city did an admirable job in trying to address the concerns of last year’s race. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. It’s not a place my husband and I will return to for a vacation. There wasn’t anything that really is of interest to us. However, overall I felt the race experience was very good, and I would certainly attend another event directed by Mr. Burke.
I’d really like to know if the swim was made longer to deal with the “current”. The swim certainly felt long to me.
If it was longer than 1500 meters why didn’t they clue us in at that stupid one hour pre race meeting that we were forced to attend?
I suppose the race went about as well as could be expected. This race is certainly not one of the best of the best though.
I’d really like to know if the swim was made longer to deal with the “current”. The swim certainly felt long to me.
The original exit point was the first boat launch and the exit was moved to the second launch because it was logistically cleaner with having to run three lanes of traffic through the venue entrance at the same time and avoid any crossover with the athletes. So the extra 80 or so meters had nothing to do with “current compensations”.
JJ
OK, thanks. It must have been that extra 80 yards that really killed me…
I didn’t do the race this year but last year the bike course was a perfect setup for drafting and it occured in abundance. Any body of water wuold be an inprovement on last year.
-Swim: the river wasn’t too bad and the start set up was perfect as it pretty much eliminated all the chaos of usual starts in my wave. The start started narrow and widened immediately, I was on the outside right on the ropes and granted I think most people bolted for the shoreline, but I had a pretty calm start. Point to point is a weird swim, you almost need meter markers along the shoreline… The swim definetely seemed longer than it should have been, longer than the 80 or so yards they added on. And there was current…
-Bike, very fun course but the course set up also made for lots of drafting, bottlenecks and penalties. Luckily I was in the 2nd wave so we didn’t have to many other waves in front of us. But I was out of the water mid pack so I had to ride through and around a lot of people to get near the front. This was very very hard with this course set up. If you were passing a group and someone in the group pulled out to pass ahead of you you didn’t have enough room to go around both the pack and that person. This in addition to a SCREWED UP RULE INTERPRETATION BY THE REFS (see note) made it very hard to overtake. I sat spinning an easy gear or stretching more than once as I waited for the pack chaos to calm down before making a pass. Two guys who were in contact with me for most of the race just went for most of the passes and both recieved multiple penalties. Also the 180 turns really bunched things up a lot. It was very cool seeing everyone riding around you though.
*STUPID RULE INTERPRETATION: “once you initiate a pass you cannot drop back, if you fail to complete the pass in 15s you get a penalty” you CANNOT DROP BACK, they said that if you can’t make a pass you should have never attempted it. So if some guy tries to pass you with a ref nearby and as he pulls around your back wheel you stand up and outsprint him before he gets past your front wheel he gets a penalty even if it only takes 5 seconds and he drops off. For women this is worse as this happens all the time as guys freak when a girl goes to pass them, they guy sprints off and dies a mile down the road but the girl is in a shitty penalty situation. We talked to the ref about this before the race and he said “that’s the way the rule reads.” I saw a guy get a penalty for this situation, it was not his fault and he got trapped and tried to back out but got the penalty anyways. He was in the draft zone 10 seconds max.
-Run: not a bad course at all, I didn’t like it but I can’t knock it for any reason. Lots of aid stations, challenging.
-Finish area very cool, nice big chute, but maybe some fruits, bagels, pretzels, something other than amino, water, and nasty (hey maybe it works but did you taste this stuff) Trigenix samples.
-Expo, pretty cool, lots of good clothing deals. If you were into shopping great. Not much info though.
-awards dinner, god why did I buy those tickets when Outback was just down the road
Overall I enjoyed the race even though I didn’t qualify and spent a sizeable amount to get out there. The town, sorry Shreveportians but why in the world would you live there? The flight attendant on our return plane kept cracking jokes about “we’re finally leaving Shreveport, forever!” I thought they normally say things like “thank you and we hope you return again.” The town just was very very very very very boring and made it basically a show up, rest, race and then leave event. It’s nice to have a little flavor to the trip besides the race itself.
Where are the official results? All I can find is the overall times and places, but when we were down there, they had the full results with all the splits. The full results are posted somewhere aren’t they?
Sweet
There was a tent with bagels and fruit, but it wasn’t real obvious. At first I thought it was for volunteers, but I did see other athletes in there. I was disappointed that there was no peanut butter for the bagels. Last year they didn’t even have bagels or if they did they were gone before I got there.
My two cents:
Pre-race happenings: TriGenix trailer was noise pollution. Turn it down! Expo was fine. Pre-race meeting a little chaotic. Expect that us tri-geeks will arrive at the earliest meeting very early…room was VERY small for the meeting and only accommodated about 1/3 of those that showed up for first meeting.
Bike numbers: Are you kidding. Those things had to be 11 x 17. We don’t have 6 feet of seatpost showing, so all of us had to do some creative manipulation and a lot of taping to get it on bike.
Transition area: Top notch effort here. Very organized, safe, clean. Very well patrolled.
Shuttle to swim start: Was that really necessary? Some of the fittest people in the country needed a bus to go .9 miles? Doing a warm-up run along the bike path worked for many of us. Gear check-in was nice at the swim start.
Swim course: Point to point going into the sun (kind of annoying), but easy to sight off of the shore. River was balmy, a bit too warm. No current that I could detect, but I could detect the extra distance in the swim.
Bike course: Boring, not very inspiring- but, safe and well-monitored. Design was a little annoying but how often do you get to bike down the highway with several other rows of cyclists? The course could have been a bit more challenging, but Shreveport didn’t look like a real nice place to bike in the first place.
Run course: Again, dull. Come on guys, I do this sport to see things, to be outside, to have fun. Give me something better than some neighborhoods to run up and down in- I can do that at home.
Post-race happenings: A complete “F” for food effort. Red beans and rice and water? I’m HUNGRY. I just raced. FEED ME (ie., refer to Memphis in May pork barbeque spread).
Awards ceremony: Nice to see awards go 10 deep.
Shreveport in general: Here’s what I don’t get. Do the people at USAT even do triathlons? So they showed up in Shreveport and thought to themselves- this would be a great place for a race?? I just don’t get it. There are so many other beautiful and convienent places to race in the south, midwest, east, west…seems like after last year they would have just chalked Shreveport up as a bad idea and moved it somewhere else. The town was difficult to get to and the climate is pretty rough for those of us that don’t live in Louisiana. The fountains by the casinos rocked out, though.